Auto-Gopher: a wireline deep sampler driven by piezoelectric percussive actuator and EM rotary motor

Mircea Badescu; Aaron Ressa; Hyeong Jae Lee; Yoseph Bar-Cohen; Stewart Sherrit; Kris Zacny; Gale L. Paulsen; Luther Beegle; Xiaoqi Bao

doi:10.1117/12.2010319

19 April 2013 Auto-Gopher: a wireline deep sampler driven by piezoelectric percussive actuator and EM rotary motor

Mircea Badescu, Aaron Ressa, Hyeong Jae Lee, Yoseph Bar-Cohen, Stewart Sherrit, Kris Zacny, Gale L. Paulsen, Luther Beegle, Xiaoqi Bao

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 8692, Sensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2013; 86922S (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2010319
Event: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, 2013, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The ability to penetrate subsurfaces and perform sample acquisition at depth of meters may be critical for future NASA in-situ exploration missions to bodies in the solar system, including Mars and Europa. A corer/sampler was developed with the goal of enabling acquisition of samples from depths of several meters where if used on Mars would be beyond the oxidized and sterilized zone. For this purpose, we developed a rotary-hammering coring drill, called Auto-Gopher, which employs a piezoelectric actuated percussive mechanism for breaking formations and an electric motor that rotates the bit to remove the powdered cuttings. This sampler is a wireline mechanism that can be fed into and retrieved from the drilled hole using a winch and a cable. It includes an inchworm anchoring mechanism allowing the drill advancement and weight on bit control without twisting the reeling and power cables. The penetration rate is being optimized by simultaneously activating the percussive and rotary motions of the Auto-Gopher. The percussive mechanism is based on the Ultrasonic/Sonic Drill/Corer (USDC) mechanism that is driven by piezoelectric stack and that was demonstrated to require low axial preload. The design and fabrication of this device were presented in previous publications. This paper presents the results of laboratory and field tests and lessons learned from this development.

Citation Download Citation

Mircea Badescu, Aaron Ressa, Hyeong Jae Lee, Yoseph Bar-Cohen, Stewart Sherrit, Kris Zacny, Gale L. Paulsen, Luther Beegle, and Xiaoqi Bao "Auto-Gopher: a wireline deep sampler driven by piezoelectric percussive actuator and EM rotary motor", Proc. SPIE 8692, Sensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2013, 86922S (19 April 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2010319

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